WHY IS THERE NO CHURCH UNITY AMONG NORWEGIAN LUTHERANS IN AMERICA? Ulrik Vilhelm Koren [As printed in the Clergy Bulletin, V. 12:1, pp. 3-6; V. 12:2, pp. 19-24; V. 12:3, pp. 39-42; V. 12:4, pp. 49-52; V. 12:5, pp. 63-64. (Printed in Kirkentidende in 1905, and in Koren’s Samlede Skrifter, pp. 454-498 – translation by C. U. Faye)] Answer to Mr. Ulvestad and to many others. Mr. M. Ulvestad has, in several periodicals in January of this year, written an article with the heading, “Church Union,” and asks: “What separates Norwegian Lutherans in America?” He subscribes to what has often been said, that “most people do not know what is at issue in the conflict.” He says that “there are some (among the uninitiated) who believe, that this is merely a conflict among the leaders, while the majority do not know what they are to believe.” He says that “what is needed is a straight-forward explanation and comparison of the doctrinal differences that are said to exist.” He says that he has diligently tried to find the difference between us, especially by reading our respective periodicals, but has found no essential difference. He “has come to the conclusion, that it is our Christianity, and not our doctrinal concepts, that has suffered the most.” He says that “if this were the main issue about which there was disagreement, namely, the way to life in God and the way to salvation, then there would be no talk of uniting. One cannot compromise the Word of God. The way which God has prescribed seems, however, to be clear enough, if only we would follow it.” Mr. Ulvestad’s article seems to me to be written in a seemly and serious vein, and he is right in that people who lately have come to this country from Norway have reason to see the matter as he does. When Mr. Ulvestad says that “they ought to come before the public and say: ‘The United Church teaches thus, the Synod thus, the Free Church thus, etc.,’” then I am of the opinion that I, as member of the Synod, may venture to say that the Synod has given as straightforward a presentation as it has been capable of, particularly as far as the last and longest doctrinal controversy is concerned. This presentation is found in “An Accounting” [“En Redegjørelse”] (Grace for Grace, p. 173). See also the article, “What the Norwegian Synod Has Willed” [“Hvad den Norske Synode har villet”]. There are two reasons why most people do not know what is the issue in the conflict. The one is that so may have not followed the controversies from the beginning, and it easily becomes impossible for most people to read the numerous contributions from the various sides. The other reason is that there are certain authors who have the peculiarity of blowing up a cloud of words out of which the only thing the reader gets hold of are some accusations which they then believe and appropriate, partly because many have a tendency to believe accusations, partly because they who make them have a name and prestige. U.V. Koren Why is There No Church Unity Among Page 2 Norwegian Lutherans in America? I If the deplorable condition among Norwegian Lutherans in America is to be understood thoroughly by persons who have come to this country in later years, then it is my conviction that this can be attained in a historical way, and since the author of these lines has been in the service of the Church longer than anyone else, there could then be in this fact an invitation to me to try to recount what my experience has been in regard to the controversies. Twenty-eight years ago I delivered a lecture to the pastors of the Norwegian Synod on “The Church Parties among Our People in America” [“De kirkelige Partier blant vort Folk i Amerika”]. This lecture was printed at the request of the Pastoral Conference. It begins with the words: “Since the church parties among our people are contemporary with the immigration, their root must be sought in the church conditions in Norway, of which ours are but a continuation under other outward circumstances.” For this I adduced proof in the above- mentioned essay. The alignment in this country by parties began thus: The greater part of the immigrants attached themselves to the Norwegian pastors who were ordained in Norway and came to America to serve their countrymen and to establish church order among them, while a lesser part did not want to have anything to do with the “Norwegian Pastors.” This lesser part in the beginning permitted itself to be led by Elling Eielsen, a lay preacher already well known in Norway, who had come here some years before the first Norwegian pastor, W. Dietrichson. The latter had come here through the support of a churchly minded laymen in Christiania, a tanner, Sørenson, who had given $1,000 to help his emigrated countrymen establish church order. Another churchly minded man, a young Dane by the name of C. L. Clausen, known also by many in Norway, worked together with Dietrichson. Clausen was ordained in this country by a German Lutheran pastor. In 1848 a third young man arrived, the Rev. H. A. Stub, who settled in Muskego. These three pastors, Dietrichson, Clausen and Stub, now sought to organize a church body and drafted a constitution. But, since both Dietrichson and Clausen held Grundtvig’s views on the baptismal covenant as the living Word of God, the Constitution, of which Dietrichson made the draft (but which was not submitted to any meeting), naturally favored this view. Dietrichson soon tired of the work, and in 1850 the Rev. A. Preus arrived in Koshkonong to take his place. Among the documents left behind by Dietrichson, Preus found his draft of a Constitution. Now, although neither Preus nor Stub was a follower of Grundtvig, nevertheless they did not discover that error in paragraph two of the original draft, with the result that the Constitution was, for the time being, accepted and the church body formed. In 1851 three new pastors came from Norway, H. A. Preus, Brandt, and G. Dietrichson. When these pastors met with those who were already here, and the Constitution was submitted, they noticed the Grundtvigian paragraph. This they would not accept; and in order that they now could proceed prudently, they dissolved the association (it could scarcely be called a body) which had already been formed, and in 1852, at a meeting in Muskego, they composed a new genuinely Lutheran paragraph on the Bible as the sole rule and norm, thus definitely vindicating the Lutheran principle of Scripture. In 1852 the Rev. J. A. Ottesen was added, and in February, 1853, a meeting of these pastors and a considerable number of laymen was held for the purpose of drawing up a regular synodical constitution, to be submitted for consideration to U.V. Koren Why is There No Church Unity Among Page 3 Norwegian Lutherans in America? congregations already organized. This was done, and, accordingly, the Norwegian Synod was founded in Rock Prairie in Wisconsin in October, 1853.1 In the meantime, Elling Eielsen, during all these years, had diligently traveled around in the settlements, preaching and warning the people against the “Norwegian pastors in long robes.” A need for a constitution was, no doubt, felt also among many of Eielsen’s friends, but it was not in the personal interests of Eielsen to establish a real church order. He preferred to rule himself (Hatlestad’s Hist. Medd., pp. 59-60). Among the men who attached themselves to Eielsen for a while was O. J. Hatlestad (who came to America in the fall, 1846). He became a pastor later on, and was for ten years president of the Norwegian Augustana Synod. In 1887, he issued a publication, Historical Communications [Historiske Meddelelser], in which he gives noteworthy information on the pioneer days of the church in this country. The Rev. Hatlestad relates (p. 37ff.) that already in April, 1846, a meeting was held at Jefferson Prairie in order to draft a church constitution, and he appeals to the testimony of the Reverends Brohaugh and Eistensen, in their book E. Eielsen’s Liv og Virksomhed, that at this meeting “Eielsen dictated and O. Andrewson wrote.” The document that resulted in this manner became the basis for the so-called “old Constitution” [“gamle Konstitution”]. This was at Koshkonong “again accepted and signed by thirty-seven brethren in the faith” in October, 1850. It is extant in print from June, 1851. It was in force for the Eielsen body till 1875, when the name Hauge’s Synod was adopted, and some changes were made in the Constitution, which were approved at a meeting in Chicago in 1876. That there in 1846 were “organized congregations” in the settlements among the people, that Eielsen served as pastor is but a loose assertion which lacks all foundation. In vain, indeed, may one search for documents in the oldest settlements, which can prove that congregations even “in a way” were organized at that time. The people who permitted themselves to be served by Eielsen, he called “sine,” “his own,” or “de er med os, de,” “these people are with us” (Hist. Medd., p. 59).2 The above mentioned “old Constitution” contains remarkable things. In paragraph 1 it is said that the body is and shall ever continue to be “built on the Word of God in the Holy Scriptures in conjunction with the apostolic and Augsburg articles of faith, which, together with the Word are the rule for our church order and for our faith and confession” (Hist.